


thank fuck it's christmas

by jehoney



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018) RPF, Queen (Band)
Genre: 70s, Alcohol, Boys Kissing, Christmas, Christmas Party, Dirty Thoughts, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Kissing, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Hangover, House Party, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Internalized Homophobia, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Making Out, Merry Christmas, Mistletoe, Multi, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Smoking, Vomiting, WHOLESOME CHRISTMAS CONTENT, Walking, bc roger is Wasted, deaky and veronica are pure protect them, deaky can fucking Get It the boy is a sex god, i have never written rpf before do you know how much i Hate Myself right now, lil bit of, plien d'alcool, pre-fame cuteness, set in early/mid 70s, sleeping in a bath, there's a festive singalong, this is not a crack fic no matter how much the title might lead you to believe that, wholesome conversations and confessions, wow okay that's enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-25 18:10:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehoney/pseuds/jehoney
Summary: “Are you trying to get me off my face?” he asks, and Roger meets his gaze with amused and unflinching, if slightly wavering eyes.“Is that a horrible idea?” he asks, lips curling around the words, and God, all Brian wants to do is kiss him right here where no-one has to see.“Depends what you want to do with me after.”orin which it's christmas, everyone is fucking wasted, and you just wanna kiss your best friend





	1. the night before

**Author's Note:**

> i've never written rpf before and ngl i feel i've reached a new low but HONESTLY this is cute as fuck so. apologies for the profanity and the throwing up but honestly roger is a messy bitch which is why we love him. leave a comment to make me feel spending my adult time on this has been worth it.
> 
> merry xmas xoxox Bri

The party is Freddie’s idea, that’s what Roger says. Freddie says it was all Roger. John and Brian decide it was some unholy combination of the two.

It’s a Christmas party, an excuse for boozing and dancing and Freddie to wear an outfit seemingly entirely comprised of tinsel, and the flat, in fairness, has been the warmest it’s been all winter now that it’s full of people. Windows are steamed from the heat inside, and there’s a frankly horrific level of cigarette smoke air pollution due to the poor ventilation, but it’s Christmas and they’re drunk, and who really cares if they have to fumigate their upholstery when they’re having this much fun? At least, that’s what Brian tries to tell himself as he weaves through the throng - though it’s more like struggling as their corridor isn’t really large enough to accommodate them all – in some vain attempt to locate either of the organisers of the festive mess.

Well, if he’s being truthful, he’s really only interested in finding Roger. What he’s not sure about himself is whether this is because the blond ran off with the bottle of vodka they were supposed to be sharing, or whether it’s because of the way his new jeans seem to be clinging to him tonight, but he ran off for a piss and hasn’t been seen since, and Brian is beginning to get a little bit worried.

All of the doors are open, and each room swimming with people, save Brian and John’s locked rooms, which they decided jointly they didn’t particularly want to keep open to guests. Brian’s decision is probably for the best he thinks, as he sticks a head round Roger’s door and sees someone trying to motorboat his poster of Jane Fonda. Rog isn’t in there though, which is surprising, not least because Brian can see Francesca in there, the beautiful leggy redhead he had over every night last week, and couldn’t keep quiet about. She’s got her hand on someone else’s thigh instead, though, and Brian isn’t really sure whether this is worth telling Rog about, because he’s never sure where his flings stand on the ‘jealousy/monogamy’ scale. He decides to keep it to himself, and if he has a little spike of smugness about Rog’s pulling options being diminished (if only slightly), he doesn’t dwell on it.

He tries the kitchen next, probably the haziest of the rooms and spots a sock over the smoke detector It’s unmistakeably Roger Taylor handiwork, but it seems to be the only clue of his presence as he’s not among the faces in here either. After elbowing his way through to switch off the hob upon which was balanced a dangerously bubbling pan of mulled wine and sodden oranges, Brian allows himself a moment of respite to lean against the counter.

“Hey, Bri!”

The call comes from across the kitchen table, and he peers around the person in between him and the voice (one of Freddie’s friends, judging by the shirt choice) to see John, grin plastered on his face and girlfriend in his lap. It’s Veronica who’s shouted, and she gives Brian a bright wave, which he returns with a wide smile, all while John looks between them, beaming stupidly. Deaky is a silly drunk, whether it’s unashamedly getting down on the dancefloor, or the softness now in his eyes as he looks at her and tightens his arms around her waist, earning a squeal and a high peal of laughter.

“Have you seen Roger?” Brian asks, acutely aware that he’s intruding on a private moment but the level of alcohol in his blood not quite allowing him to control his actions. It takes John a second to register the question, so lost is he in her face and Brian feels a pang somewhere low in his stomach at the moment.

“Living room. He’s quite drunk, I think.”

Bing Crosby is crooning from the turntable in the corner as Brian makes his way through the door, and Freddie is bent over something on the dresser, lighter sparking a stick of incense. There are wine glasses on every available surface, and on one of their battered old sofas Brian sees Roger, sunk into the cushions, eyes half closed and open bottle of vodka teetering precariously from a loose hand. He’s got a paper crown slipping down over his eyes, and his ridiculously unbuttoned shirt is flashing more skin than Brian feels comfortable admitting he enjoys seeing, but there doesn’t seem to be any room to manoeuvre to sit next to him on the piled in seat. Brian moves to take the bottle gingerly out of his hand, and try not to let his eyes linger on his midriff. He succeeds in the former.

“S’mine,’ comes the croaky, slurred protest, and Brian has to smile at the way he rubs at his eyes, blinking himself (somewhat) awake.

“We were supposed to be sharing it.” he reminds him fondly, and gives him a hand with the perpetually falling crown, setting it down on the coffee table. It’s only at this proximity that he notices the smudge of lipstick on his cheek, and his jaw clenches at the realisation that it’s a kiss. Roger shifts himself forward on the cushions and braces himself on the edge for a minute, and Brian knows just the way his head’s spinning – he’s been there too many times himself.

“You okay?”

And then Roger’s pushing himself up with a steadying hand on Brian’s shoulder, putting slightly too much weight on him and wobbling dangerously.

“God, Bri, I’m fucked…” he manages, swallowing before settling somewhat stably, “I need some… air.”

Before he lurches for the door, though, Brian feels him tug at his sleeve and looking up, Roger’s gazing down at him expectantly with those ridiculous blue eyes. He jerks his head, and it’s going to be freezing outside and Brian doesn’t even smoke and there’s a large chance Roger is going to vomit on the pavement, but he gets up to follow him anyway, swiping Rog’s cigarettes and lighter from the table. What can he say, he’s a pushover.

As they make their way down the stairs, Brian tries to focus all of his rather swimming concentration on making sure Roger doesn’t topple and kill himself, and take it off the image of that perfect red kiss on his cheek. He wonders if it was Francesca who gave it to him, whether they’re just playing around each other only to end up fucking until the early hours, whether he’s letting his jealousy run completely and utterly away with any shred of his common sense or dignity that he has left.

Outside, Brian thinks he might just freeze his bollocks off.

It was probably a good call for Roger though, as he exits the apartment building like he’s been smacked in the face with the wall of sobering cold air. He’s still staggering, though not quite so worryingly, and after a minute he no longer looks like he’s on the verge of passing out. Which Brian takes as a success.

He really desperately tries not to stare at his arse, but Roger is always so ridiculously shrewd about other people’s behaviour that when he’s mashed is the only time Brian can drink in the sight of him without getting ribbed for it. Underneath his frankly outrageous rainbow pinstriped blazer, his shirt is stretched over his chest, and his hands run underneath it and down the back of his sinful jeans in an attempt to find something, dragging themselves over skin and flesh. Brian wishes he could replace those hands, could feel the lines of his body that his wardrobe doesn’t leave anything to the imagination about other than how they would feel under Brian’s fingers. He realises he has a semi, and tears his gaze away.

“Cigarette?” he asks, pulling the pack and lighter out of his pocket, and Rog pulls a pantomime expression of confusion, one hand still in his shirt.

“But you don’t…”

“Knew you’d want one.”

Brian pulls one out of the pack, and with boldness fuelled by alcohol, puts it between Roger’s slack lips, trying not to concentrate too hard on how his teeth and mouth close around it. He brings out the lighter, too, and lights the end of it, so close to Roger’s face that he can see the sleep in the corners of his eyes. He steps back.

“Thanks, Bri.” Roger takes a long drag, eyes seeming to come somewhat back into focus as the nicotine fills his lungs. He steps back and finds the wall of their building to lean against, wincing slightly at the cold brick. “God, I fucking peaked early, didn’t I?”

Brian knows he’s not really supposed to agree, but in all honesty Rog is rather too much of a mess for just shy of midnight.

“It’s Christmas, Rog. You’re allowed.” Is what comes out of his mouth instead as he moves to lean beside him, and Rog gives a little chuckle. He’s still got one hand inside his shirt, for warmth Brian figures, but he can see the way his thumb brushes over his nipple, as much as he doesn’t want to.

“I know I’m allowed.” Roger shoots back drily, then fixes him with a stare, speaking as he exhales a lung of smoke, “Why aren’t _you_ fucked, Brian?”

Brian wants to say that he is rather fucked, actually, though only half on alcohol and half on the messily debauched angel stood in front of him, but instead he just shrugs.

“I’m pacing myself.”

“Coward. Let loose. It’s Christmas, Bri.”

He is unreasonably pleased with himself at throwing Brian’s words back at him, and the smug little smirk he gives himself makes Brian’s heart do some kind of clenching thing that he doesn’t know is healthy.

“Are you trying to get me off my face?” he asks, and Roger meets his gaze with amused and unflinching, if slightly wavering eyes.

“Is that a horrible idea?” he asks, lips curling around the words, and God, all Brian wants to do is kiss him right here where no-one has to see.

“Depends what you want to do with me after.”

He doesn’t even think about it before it comes out of his mouth, but once it has everything in his Brain turns to red flashing lights and alarm bells, and he feels himself flush three shades pinker than is normal, even in the cold night air. He breaks the eye contact but Roger continues to stare at him, and if Brian wasn’t training his eyes so studiously on the pavement he would have sworn he could see him pull his lower lip into his mouth.

As it goes, there’s a minute of silence: Roger smoking and Brian trying to regain some sense of composure, until he feels competent enough to change the subject.

 “Francesca’s here.”

Great work. Move the conversation onto the topic of his ex. Top level stuff from you, Brian.

“Ugh, I know. She looks fucking mouth-watering.”

It’s not quite a surprise, but the reaction still throws him a little. He tries to play it off and engage in the level of best-friend support he knows he should be working on, but he keeps imagining her red lips pressed against Roger’s cheek, her hands tangled in his hair, her legs around his waist--

“You going there, then?” he manages.

Roger shakes his head, and Brian feels his envy ebb away.

“Don’t think so.” He flicks some ash onto the asphalt and looks up through his lashes, “She’s trying it with Ken. And, I mean, she’s beautiful and a fucking good shag but…”

If his trailing off coincides with the way his eyes track the length of Brian’s body, Brian’s too polite to notice it.

“But what?” he asks, small and slightly choked.

Roger just looks at him, face tipped up and a challenge in his eyes. He looks like he’s going to say something important, but doesn’t quite know how to formulate it; It’s a specific expression which Brian knows all too well, but is eventually abandoned in favour of a small laugh and drag of his cigarette.

“God, you’re so fucking nosy, you know that?”

Brian exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Sorry.”

Roger laughs again, raspy and private and Brian’s self-consciousness rockets.

“What?”

He waves his cigarette at him.

“You really _are_ sorry. S’cute.”

The blue eyes linger on his face, and now Brian likes to pretend they’re more unfocused than they are, because drunk-and-off-his-tits Roger calling him cute is something he can, and has, handled with ease, but if there’s any lucidity to the statement things are going to get very tricky very fast.

He wants to go inside, wants to be out of the freezing cold and back in a place where he’s not left alone with only himself, Roger, and his massive emotional (and maybe physical) boner for Roger for company.

“Are you done?” he asks, somewhat irritably, bringing his arms around him for some kind of thermal barrier.

“You can go in without me, you know.”

He doesn’t want to go inside, because inside means having to think about how every look and comment appears to all of their friends, and inside means Francesca and more alcohol and complications that are so beautifully avoided by the two of them just staying out here in the cold. So he tries to find an excuse.

“You’re wasted. You’ll get locked out.”

It’s the best he can come up with.

“I won’t,” comes the somewhat petulant and slurred reply.

“I’m staying.”

Brian shifts closer to him, and feels Roger’s head come to rest heavily on his shoulder. Warmth spreads from the point of contact down his body, and he allows himself a stupid smile as he leans his head back to drink in the sight of the stars. His steamed breath mixes with Roger’s smoke as they curl up as one ribbon into the black. Dark blond hair tickles at his neck. Fingers brush against the seam of his trousers.

He’s royally screwed.

* * *

 

Roger’s at that blissful stage of intoxication where he couldn’t feel the cold even if he tried. They were outside for the best part of half an hour, and though he’s aware of he numbness of his fingers, his brain just won’t let him be particularly bothered by it, which is just wonderful. What he can feel, however, with pressing and frightening constancy, is Brian’s steadying hand on the small of his back as they make their way back up the stairs.

He’s got no filter when he’s drunk, not that he has a particularly effective one sober, but the dangerous closeness to which he almost told Brian why he’s not trying to shag Fran has spooked him somewhat. He actually would like to shag her, rather a lot, especially in that skirt she’s wearing that makes her legs look like they go on for delicious miles, but every time he thinks about it there’s a set of different lips he wants to be kissing and it’s too much for his sloshed brain to untangle. He wants it to be as simple as it used to be, when he could fuck a girl and just enjoy it, instead of spending the whole time thinking about Brian. And every time he recognises that it makes him want to curl up and die a little more.

But the warm presence of Brian behind him as they venture back into the hazy apartment makes something tingly start in the pit of his stomach, and he was definitely not imagining the way he was leaning into him outside, all tipsy limbs and jealous eyes.

Is he sloshed enough to snog his bandmate in front of all of their assembled friends and pass it off as nothing? Probably. Would Freddie be convinced? Definitely not.

He wants to find somewhere private, but not freezing, because now they’re back with Other People Brian’s studiously avoiding all physical contact and Roger is needy for it. He wants to put his head back on Bri’s shoulder again, to tangle a hand in his curls, to have his fingers as tantalisingly close to his lips as they were when he lit his cigarette. There are other, filthy things he wants to do as well but he gets fucking horny when he’s drunk and he’d rather wait until he’s sober to see whether his dick thinks the same without alcohol.

They’re battling their way down the hall, but there are people in every room, and he thinks asking Bri to unlock his room would probably be a bit much and make him bolt; the floor is slightly tilting too, so he’s grateful when a bedecked Freddie appears in his eyeline and grabs a hold of his hand.

“Darlings!”

He’s lost his shirt at some point so is instead wearing a sash of silver tinsel, and has two baubles hooked over the tops of his ears and much more eyeliner than when Roger saw him last. He’s also smashed, by the way he pulls Roger close to him and squeezes his arse in greeting. Over Roger’s shoulder, he reaches a glittery painted nail to drag down the side of Brian’s face, who smiles bewilderedly at him.

“Go get your axe, Mister Guitar Man!” he commands, one arm still tight around Roger’s waist who takes the support of another body happily. Looking back at Brian, they share a look, but Roger’s not really sure what it says other than something significant.

“Why?” comes the exasperated response, and the nail moves to press against his lips to shut him up.

“A sing-a-long, of course!” Roger watches Brian’s lips for a touch to long, the way they pillow underneath the pressure of a fingertip, before Freddie’s whisking him away, not even allowing him a view of Brian’s retreating arse, the cruel thing. He knows Brian’s watching his, though. He swings his hips to give him a show.

“You were out there for a suspicious while, dear,” Freddie murmurs, low in his ear, before giving it a playful nip, and Roger has to bat him away.

“Were we?”

He’s far too inebriated to come up with a less telling response, and Freddie seems happy to hum suggestively in his ear until he can plonk them both down on the sofa, piling into Roger’s lap like a cat. He realises he’s back where he was an hour ago, and has an odd moment of déjà vu before noticing who’s beside him this time, long legs crossed over each other and hand on the chest of the man next to her, who’s brushing a strand of red hair from her face.

Absently, he wonders if Brian will be jealous. He thinks he wants him to be.

After about twenty seconds Freddie launches himself upright again, pushing off from Roger’s stomach and leaving him winded, only to drag Deaky and Veronica through from the kitchen and deposit them in an armchair. Deaky’s got a rather telling red smile from Veronica’s makeup, and Roger remembers and brings a hand to his own cheek to find her lipstick there too, before shooting them both a grin and a wave. If he had any sense of reasonable limits he’d refuse the cup of mulled wine being pressed into his hand by Freddie, but the length of Fran’s thigh is pressed against his own and Brian appears in the doorway with his acoustic slung over his shoulder, looking delightfully drunk, so he takes a gulp.

“What am I playing, Fred?” Brian asks, perching on the edge of the coffee table, and Freddie grins before beginning to sing by way of answer.

“ _I really can’t stay…”_

“Really?”

“Shut up and duet with me, you cock.”

Roger sniggers, and sees Brian’s smiling eyes flick up to him, and back down to his fingers on the fretboard. He feels his face colour and takes another sip.

And then Brian’s playing, and they’re both singing, and Roger doesn’t know whether he’s loved anyone in the world more. All of them, that is. He loves Deaky, with his flushed face pressed into Veronica’s neck, arms held tight about her like he’s scared to let her go. He loves Freddie, bedazzled Freddie, playing the perfect coquette of the song, trailing his hand up the arm of the man he’s been trying it with all night and sharing those onstage looks with Brian, the ones that speak of absolute trust and faith in each other. And he loves Brian. Not in any scarily new kind of way, but the way he’s always loved him. Loved the way his fingers move on the steel strings; loved the warm simplicity of his voice; loved how he keeps stealing glances that make Roger hide behind the rim of his mug and make his legs turn to water. Okay, maybe that’s new.

He’s melted through, and it’s Christmas, and everyone else in the room could disappear and he’d still feel like part of the best family in the world.

* * *

 

After the eighth song, a rousing roomful rendition of ‘Good King Wenceslas’, Brian makes an executive decision to cut the singalong short. Freddie’s been sat in some guy’s lap for the past two numbers, his hand edging up the inside of his thigh, and it’s Deaky that’s fallen asleep, curled up with Veronica in an armchair. Roger, surprisingly, is still awake, nursing an empty mug of something that Brian hopes wasn’t alcoholic for the sake of his not getting blood poisoning. He’s been watching him as he’s been playing, being distinctly distracting in the way his legs are splayed and his eyelashes lowered, looking over his drink.

Brian wants to kiss him. He wants to stand between those thighs, lean down, take his pretty face in his hands and kiss him breathless and he’s rather sure at this point Roger wants it too, so he stands up. He ignores the chorus of groans, instead leaning his guitar against the wall and giving Rog a deliberate look and jerk of his head to the door. It’s half to avoid attention, half payback for Rog doing the exact same thing earlier, and the way Roger’s eyes instantly widen and he goes to push himself up is more than a little arousing, if he’s honest. He makes it barely outside the door before he feels a hand tug on the back of his shirt, and turns to see Roger there, right there, swaying slightly and gazing up at him with wet parted lips that look like an invitation.

Brian crowds him back against the wall, and it’s only marginally less public than the other room but he just can’t wait, so he brings a thumb up to trace the moisture of his lower lip. He’s close enough to see the hairs that stick to his forehead, the dry skin on his nose, the blood vessels in his eyes. Roger swallows, but doesn’t move in, and Brian’s not really sure who’s supposed to initiate this, even though they both want it just as badly. Then he swallows again, and opens his mouth as if to say something.

“You okay?” Brian asks, barely more than a breath over his cheek, and Rog nods.

“Mhm, I just…” he trails off, swallows again and brings a hand up to Brian’s at his mouth, “I think I need to be sick.”

And he ducks under Brian’s arm and makes a bolt for the bathroom.

Brian allows himself a moment of pressing his head against the wall in frustration, before he follows.

He’s trying not to be pissed, he really is, and he knows he should have taken that last cup of wine off him after the way he was staggering up and down the stairs, but he can’t help but fume at the fact that Rog is twenty-three and still doesn’t know how to drink without throwing up. The annoyance abates slightly to sympathy as he steps into the bathroom and sees him propped up on the toilet seat, wiping the back of his mouth and looking slightly bedraggled, but mostly Brian is just filled with utter amazement at the fact that post-vomit-sloshed-as-anything Roger is someone that Brian wants to snog the life out of just as much. The man smiles, queasily.

“M’sorry, Bri, I really fucked up that moment, didn’t I?”

From his seat on the floor he makes grabby hands towards the toothbrushes, and Brian picks his out and tosses it to him with a tube of toothpaste, before leaning his weight against the door. He’s still marginally annoyed, but in here is much more private than the hall anyway, and at least Roger’s got it out of his system. He’s brushing his teeth quite violently, and Bri’s not sure what that bodes for the kissing forecast, but he can only hope.

“You annoyed at me?” Roger asks through a mouthful of toothpaste, and someone yells through the door for them to ‘fuck in one of the bedrooms, some of us need to piss!’. Brian can’t help but chuckle and shakes his head.

“No, Rog… I’m not annoyed.” He lies, but it’s growing truer by the second. He gives Roger a hand up to rinse his mouth, and their eyes meet in the mirror, blue on hazel. The gaze is a bit too much and he needs to sit down. He backs up and takes a perch on the edge of the bath.

Roger sets the toothbrush down with what Brian would have called nervous fingers, if he didn’t know him any better, and turns to face him. He steps forwards into the V of his legs, hair falling down about his face and smelling like alcohol and spearmint. There’s a smudge of foam in the right hand corner of his mouth, which Brian wipes away with a thumb, letting the hand rest on his cheek, feeling the brush of his hair, the coarseness of barely-there stubble, the texture of his skin. And Roger’s got a hand on him, too, on his shoulder that’s working its way to the back of his neck and he can see his wide pupils search Brian’s face, like a silent question, or a silent command, like he’s begging in his breathy voice _Kiss me Kiss me Kiss me._

So Brian does.

The softest contact of lips on lips, hesitant as teenagers, before they slot together, warm and wet and tentative and hungry. Roger kisses nothing like he plays, there’s no rhythm, no drive other than chasing the movements of Brian’s mouth, drunk and pliant and willing and Brian loves it because he’s so desperate he licks into Roger’s mouth probably way too early than is acceptable, but he doesn’t care. They’re open mouthed now, and messy, and they’ve been waiting to do this for so long and Roger tastes like wine and toothpaste and the inside of him, which is a thought so intimate it flashes hotly to Brian’s crotch. He’s tasting inside him. Roger’s hand that isn’t tangled in his hair doesn’t help either, gripping tightly high up on his thigh, and every movement makes him hungrier, appetite increasing on that which it feeds on, feeding on Roger, Roger, Roger, mouth and hands and body.

But they’re both so drunk, and for anything more to happen right now would be to take gross advantage of Roger’s state so he forces himself to reel in the kisses, closing his mouth against Roger’s searching tongue and earning a high, disappointed whine when he finally fully pulls away.

“Bri…” Roger groans, and if Brian had lost all his control he would literally come in his pants right there, at his _voice_ and the hand that’s now rubbing up and down his thigh.

He shushes him, and goes to shuffle back, before realising he’s on the narrow edge of a bath and half-controlled falling into the tub, limbs flailing. Roger is kiss drunk now too, and as Brian settles into the porcelain he can feel Roger climb in after, ending up pressed up against the length of him, lips finding his again and moving so dangerously temptingly together that it takes all of Brian’s strength to pull away a second time.

“No.” he murmurs, and Roger’s eyelids lift marginally, eyebrows furrowing.

“No?” he asks, and he sounds so hurt that Brian has to take one of his hands and lace their fingers together.

“Not tonight,” he clarifies, “You’re—We’re both…”

“Hammered.” Roger finishes, with a stupid little drunken smile, and Brian can’t help but kiss it, quick and chaste, and because he’s allowed to do that now and the concept is maddening.

“Yes.”

He feels Roger warm beside him, and notices his eyes slide closed, the limp hand in his. His chest rises and falls, stomach exposed by his unbuttoned shirt. He whispers his name, to no response. He’s fallen asleep.

Brian’s eyelids are heavy too. He tries not to think about his hard-on, pressed up against Roger’s thigh. He tries not to think about how sore they’re going to be tomorrow morning, cramped up together in this tiny bath. He really tries not to think about how Roger might be so fucked he won’t even remember this come morning.

He looks up at the peeling paint of the bathroom ceiling, and notices someone’s tied a branch of something to the shower rail. He squints his eyes.

It’s mistletoe.


	2. the morning after

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we back - this got a bit long but thank u for all the lovely comments it is muchos appreciated <3
> 
> some hungover chats and a v brief mention of some dodgy dubious underage experimentation so be warned
> 
> enjoy!!!!!!!

Brian wakes the next day with the worst hangover he’s had in a good while. He wasn’t even that drunk, but he thinks sleeping in the bath might have had something to do with it.

He doesn’t know what time it is – it’s still dark outside, but at this time of year that could mean anywhere between four in the afternoon and ten in the morning – but he does know what’s woken him: the slow, high moans coming from John’s room next door. All props to him, Brian thinks, but its not the way he’d like to be woken, with the muscles in his neck twanging and a throbbing headache, having to listen to his bandmate having the evident time of his life. His mouth feels like it’s lined with toilet paper and is screaming for hydration.

He steals a look at the body squashed up next to him, because he can’t quite believe Roger _is_ squashed up next to him, and pulls a dark blond strand of hair from out of his mouth. He’s out like a light, completely dead to the world other than the minute flickering of his eyelids and the way he’s breathing deeply through his mouth, but Brian thinks he should check anyway before he tries to disentangle himself.

“Rog?” he whispers, and, as expected, receives no reply.

The escape process reveals a lot more cramps than he first anticipated, making it progressively more difficult to get himself upright without tearing the shower curtain and rail down on the pair of them. Luckily Roger’s too deep asleep to be clingy, not even shifting as Brian steps out of the bath and onto the suspiciously sticky tiled floor, just pressing his cheek into the porcelain.

He cracks his neck, once on each side, muscles protesting, and picks his way down the corridor, amongst beer cans and forgotten coats to the kitchen, desperate for a glass of water. There are no more cups in the kitchen than there were in the bathroom, so Brian fills up a bowl, grimaces at what he’s been reduced to, and downs the whole thing. A squint at the clock tells him it’s just gone eight. The noises from Deaky’s bedroom seem to have quitened, thank God, and there’s an odd Sunday stillness over the rooftops he can see from the kitchen window. The streetlights are still lit, the sky still dark, but bleeding up with the faint light of a winter morning that bodes clear skies and hoar frost that Brian wants to resolutely insulate himself from in the warmth of their flat. But first, he needs to drink his body weight in water.

After a few minutes of gingerly searching through piles of crockery, he manages to find two glasses that he can rinse. He knows Roger’s going to be in a fucking foul state when he wakes up, but he might as well be prepared with water – it can’t solve the muscle strain or the reconfiguration of their friendship, but it does wonders for a headache.

He fills both glasses, downs them, and fills them again, picking his way back through the darkness to the bathroom. When he gets there the tub is empty.

“Rog?” he asks, like Roger might have turned invisible, or is hiding behind the shower curtain. There’s no response.

He tries his room first, but it’s empty save for Jane Fonda’s come-hither eyes gazing down from the wall. He gingerly peers around Deaky’s door, to find him and Veronica tangled up together like they’ve fallen asleep mid-shag, which he thinks might actually be a possibility. Freddie’s dozing underneath silk printed sheets and the burly arm thrown over his chest, which leaves only one more option.

Sure enough, there’s a rainbow striped blazer and unbuttoned shirt on the threshold of his room, and a shirtless drummer passed out in Brian’s bed.

As much as he’d like to lay down next to him, Roger’s sprawled across most of the mattress and Brian’s not sure how much he can control himself now that his shirt is completely _off_ , so he sets one of the glasses down on the bedside table. He figures if Roger’s stolen his bed then he might as well enact revenge, but as he’s leaving the room he’s stopped.

“Come lie down, you twat.”

Roger is propped up on an elbow, raking his hair out of his face and looking pretty fucking rough. As Brian turns, he pushes himself up with what seems to be considerable effort and leans himself back against the wall, and Brian’s able to see the dark smudges under his eyes and stubble shadow in all its bedraggled glory.

“Stop being such a prude.” He says, passing a hand over his face and seemingly trying to rub some life back into it.

“Are you going to stop insulting me if I do?”

The glare Roger gives him could burn through steel.

“Did I throw up last night?” he asks, blearily, and Brian nods, coming to sit back on the bed.

“Hm.” is all he says in response, and Brian’s panicking because a kiss is pretty much nothing compared to chucking up the contents of your stomach, and if Roger can’t even remember that then who’s to say he remembers what happened between them at all? It’s ridiculous, because they’ve been essentially spooning all night, but Brian still asks.

“How much of last night do you remember?”

Roger gives him the most withering look, and then he’s moving forward to press their lips together, brief and urgent. It’s heartbreakingly short, and a bit angry, if kisses can be, and he pulls away a centimetre to speak.

“Are you asking me if I remember that?”

Brian just nods, incapable of anything more.

And Roger shifts down the bed, leaving him to try and get some air back in his lungs.

* * *

When Roger wakes for the third time, Brian’s asleep, face half hidden in his mass of curls, and one hand resting comfortably on Roger’s hip.

He vaguely remembers getting himself out of the bath and falling into Brian’s bed, and then some half-conscious conversation in which they may have kissed, and then the ache hits him and he has to roll over and stifle a string of profanities. The mattress is, at least, better than the bath, and there is a glass of water on the bedside table that, despite having to lean over Brian’s sleeping body in a way that makes his back muscles scream to reach, is a godsend.

He is fucking _hanging._

He is also fucking freezing, so grabs the nearest item of clothing he can find, one of Brian’s old university hoodies, the sleeves slightly too long and embroidered letters frayed slightly, but weirdly warming in several ways as he zips it up over his bare chest.

He chugs the water in one as he stares at Brian’s sleeping face, and only realises once the liquid hits his empty stomach that he needs some food stat if he wants to keep anything down, so shuffles down to the end of the bed. The motion of standing up, however, makes him realise he’s not going to keep anything down at all, so he staggers for the bathroom.

There’s the sound of low voices and a smell of coffee from the kitchen, which just makes his stomach churn even more, but two minutes and a much mintier mouth later he’s bracing the room with all the strength he can muster.

“Roger!” comes from Freddie, in a delightfully short dressing gown, tossing him a blessed pair of sunglasses for the weak light through the window.

“Afternoon, princess.” is John, fully dressed and nursing what smells like a strong cup of coffee.

“Fuck you all to hell.” Is Roger’s eloquent reply.

“He did.”

“She did.”

Roger mimes gagging at the responses, then actually feels a little sick, so stops.

He can feel Freddie’s eyes analysing every part of him as he sits down, searching his neck for the telltale lovebites that litter his own, lingering on the ‘Astrophysics Faculty’ emblazoned across his chest that he realises makes him look guilty as anything.

“Did Brian?” he asks, with a raised eyebrow that makes Roger’s face flush.

“What?”

“Fuck you to hell?”

“Or heaven.”

Roger whips his head to give John a warning glare, then winces at the movement. John hides a snigger behind his mug.

“Fuck off.” Roger spits with as much venom as he can manage, then realises how defensively telling that sounds, so tries to amend it but ends up sounding weaker with each protest, “No. No I—No he didn’t.”

Freddie pins him with an unimpressed look, so he flips him off and crosses his arms tightly over his chest, sliding down in the chair. The other man sets a steaming cup in front of him and moves to stand behind, carding long fingers through his mess of hair. It’s pretty much the only part of his body that’s not aching or strained, so he leans into the touch gratefully, and Freddie doesn’t seem to care about the tangles or the greasiness, he never does, just massages his scalp.

“Probably for the best, bath sex sounds horrifically uncomfortable, darling.”

It’s half-funny, and true, and if Roger didn’t feel like complete shit he might laugh, but it’s only Freddie’s soothing fingers in his hair that stops him from turning round and punching him in the face. If it weren’t Brian, too, it would be different – if it were Fran or some other girl, or probably even if it were another guy that none of them knew he’d be able to take the prodding, but it’s Brian and he’s in the other room. Brian who he lives with, who he plays with, who kissed him last night and took all of the oxygen out of his lungs, and who he definitely without-a-doubt would have fucked and fucked _hard_ last night if he hadn’t been stopped, and now he’s got no shield of inebriation to hide behind. He’s dreading when he wakes up, when he walks through the kitchen door in the jeans that Roger remembers feeling stretched over his thigh, when he realises Roger’s stolen one of his jumpers and fuck, now he feels utterly and stupidly presumptuous for taking it at all. He should take it off and put it back. He should have a shower. He shouldn’t have kissed him earlier, but he was only half awake and Brian looked like a tall, water-bearing angel, and he wasn’t about to break his established patchy record of decision-making.

So he tilts his head back stiffly to look Freddie in the face and tell him, deadpan:

“I will not hesitate, when I snap your neck, Fred. It will be ruthless and painful and I won’t regret it at all.”

Freddie taps him on the nose with a fingertip.

John is less understanding of Roger’s stormy moods.

“Gosh, not even the universe’s worst hangover can make you shut up, can it?” he says, smile in his voice, from over the top of a newspaper Roger can’t remember seeing anywhere five minutes ago. He sighs.

“Deaky, I’m really not in the mood. Can’t you go and have some more disgustingly loud sex?”

John just smiles smugly, and Freddie gives his hair a little tug.

“Jealous?”

He doesn’t want to tell Freddie ‘yes’ but it would be a hell of a lot easier if he and Brian shagged last night and could pass it off as drunken messiness. Now he has to deal with the fact he wants to do him sober too.

“Ronnie’s had to go to work, or I would, believe me.”

God, Deaky has got it fucking _made_. Veronica is not only one of the most beautiful women Roger has ever met, in the most objective way he can possibly think it, but she and Deaky get along like they were made to exist with each other. Roger can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to be so in love with someone who’s also your best friend in the world.

It’s at this moment that Brian pads into the room, bleary eyed and making Roger’s stomach turn.

“Food. Please.” He grunts, and his voice is low and deliciously gravelly. Roger sinks lower in his chair.

John looks between the two of them in the least subtle of ways, before announcing, “We’re out.”

“What?” comes the horrified unified response.

Brian rakes a hand through his hair and Roger tries not to stare, deciding instead to focus on his aching stomach.

“Don’t fuck with me, Deacon.” He warns as intimidatingly as he can, but Deaky just raises his eyebrows

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” he says, “Someone tried to make French toast at 3am and used the last of our bread and eggs.”

For once, Roger can rule himself out of the drunken shenanigans, and he has the cramped neck to prove it. Freddie does let out a suspiciously guilty giggle, though, and continues adding to the tiny plaits on the top of Rog’s head that are making his scalp itch.

“Bacon?” he asks desperately, because he can only manage on a cup of coffee and a queasy stomach for so long. He hasn’t even had a cigarette this morning yet, and it’s making his skin crawl.

The voice above his head pipes up.

“We could do pancakes?”

Brian looks at Roger for the first time since he enters the room, and it’s an unimpressed look that makes his cheeks hot, “Like we’ve been able to afford bacon for the last month.” He states drily, and Roger grits his teeth, humiliated.

“No eggs, Fred.” John reminds him quietly, but all Roger has (or rather hasn’t) got time for is Brian’s sarcasm.

“Well I’m fucking sorry, Brian, I don’t keep the expenses on the whole fucking household, do I?”he snaps back, because honestly acting like Roger’s an idiot is a favourite joke of the band that he doesn’t have time for with his head in the state it is. Brian rolls his eyes and Roger wants to slap the scowl off his face, but settles for tugging his hair out of Freddie’s hands.

“Deaky?” Brian searches for support in what is quickly progressing into an argument, but John holds his hands up in surrender

“Don’t drag me into this.”

It’s Freddie who is the peacemaker, stepping around to stand between them with arms folded.

“Take your bickering to the shop, boys, and get us some, hm?”

The death stares they give him are in agreement, at least.

Roger runs his hand through the tiny braids, unpicking them. The thought of leaving the flat makes him want to crawl under his chair.

“I feel like death, Fred.” He protests, and he hears Brian scoff.

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you—”

And he’s really had enough now.

“Before I did what, Bri? What did I do last night?”

The question hangs in the air, unanswered, though all four of them know. Brian turns a deep red, but doesn’t break Roger’s challenging gaze, which is something, and Roger knows exactly what he’s thinking about – lips on lips and tongues behind teeth and Roger’s hand on his thigh and breathy, drunken moans – because it’s what he can’t stop thinking about too. He just wants to hear him say it.

Freddie claps his hands and Brian finally looks away. Roger considers it a victory.

“All the more reason for you to get some fresh air!” he chirps, looking to Deaky for moral support and receiving a hum of accord. Brian seems happy with the idea too, muttering under his breath as he stares at his feet sulkily.

“Yeah, cool off, Rog.”

But Freddie isn’t letting him get away with it that easily.

“ _Both_ of you.” He clarifies. “Fuck off, darlings. Bring us food.”

Despite the pet name there’s the dangerous steel behind his voice that Roger knows better than to argue with, so he scrapes back his chair and exits the kitchen with as much petty anger as he can muster. He’s not sure whether the outside air is going to make him vomit again, or clear his head, just like he doesn’t know if he’s going to throttle Brian or kiss him. There does seem to be an odd relationship between their fighting and how fuckable he finds him though, so with this level of dehydrated and sleep deprived frustration anything could happen.

Roger snags the coat on the top of the first pile of clothes he can see in his room, an admittedly formidable fur number, checks to see if there are cigarettes in the pocket and pulls on a pair of Freddie’s trainers. It’s not his finest look, and he hears Brian sigh audibly when he sees the ensemble, flipping him off in response.

Freddie hands them some money and waves them from the doorway like he’s seeing them off to school. They walk in sullen schoolboy silence until the end of the road, when Brian speaks.

“Don’t vomit in a bin, please.”

“Leave it out.” Roger bites back, and puts a cigarette between his teeth. It takes a good minute to light it, the lighter playing up in his nervous fingers, but it gives him something to focus on other than Brian next to him.

“You alright?” the man asks, and Roger’s not really in the headspace for small talk but manages to inject some lightheartedness into his response.

“Awful, thanks for asking. You?”

Brian smiles wanly.

“Yeah, not too fresh.”

A slightly awkward silence settles over them, the kind of silence when they both know there’s something lingering that they should be talking about but that neither of them have the strength to face just yet. Instead they walk, Roger taking in the overcast sky, impenetrable white cloud casting the suburbs of London in clear gray light. The cigarette does wonders for his irritability, gives him something to do with his fingers and fills his lungs with burning goodness. He feels Brian beside him, the pace of his long strides, the way the backs of their hands brush, knuckle to knuckle and wonders how long they could hold hands before they were jumped in Hackney on a Sunday afternoon. He reckons he could take it, hungover as he is, he could headbutt someone if it meant being able to tangle their fingers together for this five minute walk, but in the end he’s just too much of a coward. So he lets their skin brush, tantalising, until Brian shoves his hand into his pocket and breaks Roger’s heart a little.

He clears his throat.

“We didn’t really get to talk earlier…”

Ah. Brian has got to be the one to break the lovely undefinable silence, hasn’t he? Roger takes a deep inhale of nicotine and savours the rush before he responds.

“When you tried and I just kissed you and went to sleep?”

“Yeah.”

He taps some ash onto the pavement.

“It was 8am, Bri.”

“Fair point.”

Silence settles again, but Roger can feel Brian’s fingers picking at the inside of his jacket pocket from here, nervous and unsure, so he decides to throw him a rope.

“Do you… want to talk _now_?” he asks, pointedly looking at the ground, and Brian tries to feign nonchalance.

“I don’t mind.”

For fuck’s sakes.

“That’s a yes, then.”

“Guess so.”

Roger’s not a fan of bullshitting. This doesn’t mean he’s not a fan of deliciously blurred boundaries, because those are some of his favourite things, he just doesn’t think they warrant talking about. He’s not naïve enough, however, to assume everyone feels the same way, so if someone wans to hash it out he’s more than happy, he just wishes they wouldn’t pussyfoot about it in case they get their feelings hurt. So he takes another drag and speaks the following to their surroundings.

“I really enjoyed kissing you, and I don’t know whether it was just because I was fucking hammered but I don’t think it was because I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, and I’d really like to shag you at some point if you’d be up for that, but maybe not today because I feel like I’ve been run over a few times and all I think I can manage after this walk is lying down on the sofa and sleeping until I don’t literally want to tear out my liver.”

He steals a glance to his left and sees Brian’s brain processing this.

“Right.” Is all he comes up within response, and Roger would be lying if he said he wasn’t more than a little disappointed.

“Your turn.” He prompts.

“What?”

He really is saddled with Fucking Brian Fucking May, expert at pussyfooting and bullshitting, so he’s impatient and irritated when he says:

“You can’t leave me hanging.”

Brian seems to realise there’s no getting out of this, so he clears his throat.

“Uh—okay. Well, I enjoyed kissing you too.”

Good to know, considering.

“Gee, thanks.” He deadpans, but Brian is just getting started.

“And I wasn’t even that drunk so that can’t have been why.”

“You’re terrible at this.”

“And all I could really think about last night was how much I wanted to shag you in those jeans.”

Roger laughs, then sees Brian’s grimace and stifles it.

“Wow. Okay.” He manages, and Brian shoves his hands even deeper into his pockets and lets out a: “Sorry.” Which is half embarrassed but mostly a bit indignant which Roger thinks is fair; as it’s a mutual feeling he shouldn’t have made Brian feel stupid about it, so he tries to amend it quickly.

“No! Don’t be sorry, Bri.” The truth is that the image of Brian trying to fuck him with his jeans on is what’s tickling him most, so he almost can’t stop himself from asking drily: “ _In_ the jeans?”

Brian pins him with a glare.

“No, obviously not bloody—Obviously not with you wearing them.” He says, like Roger’s a fucking idiot for even thinking it, but at least the tension’s dissipated and he’s got a dry little smirk tipping up the corners of his lips.

“I was gonna say.”

“Yeah. Logistical nightmare.”

But he doesn’t miss the way Brian’s eyes flick down to his legs in those same said jeans, or the way he bites the inside of his cheek.

They’re rounding into an alley, the type where teenagers get mugged and dogs get kicked in the darkness of night but in this light is just another stretch of blissfully private pavement, and suddenly Brian’s stopped walking and has caught the end of his sleeve in a tight grip. Roger turns, and in some hungover echo of last night he finds himself pressed up against the wall, but this time he’s not running away and he leans into Brian’s lips, keen and slightly breathless.

It’s a bit rushed, but Brian’s rubbing circles on his hip through the tight denim, and there’s nothing Roger finds hotter than feeling someone smile into a kiss which he’s doing, and widely it seems, so he can almost forget about his blinding headache for however long he stays pinned against his body. And then they’re apart, and it takes a few more seconds for Brian to pull his hand away from Roger’s waist, proud expression on his face but like he can’t quite believe what he’s done.

Roger can’t quite believe it either, but _fuck_ is it attractive when he knows what he wants and goes for it.

What’s even more attractive is the way Brian carries on walking after a moment, like nothing’s happened, leaving him, winded, up against the wall.

Roger has to jog to catch him up.

They’re on the main road now, storefronts mostly closed for Sunday and bedecked with strings of coloured lights that hang switched off and sad. It seems to be populated entirely by pensioners and buggy-pushing mothers, desperate to get out of the house, so Brian and Roger stick out like sore and hungover thumbs. An old lady walks by with her carpet bag on wheels and tuts at, Roger assumes, his coat, evidently too flamboyant for a midday stroll to the shop by her standards. He glares at her, then remembers he’s wearing sunglasses, and wonders what she’d do if she saw what they were doing a minute ago, or last night for that matter. His lips are still a bit tingly and he wants to hold Brian’s hand more than ever in the hopes that the resulting heart attack might send the judgy bitch into her grave.

Brian’s voice pulls him back from his fantasies of killing grandmas.

“Have you ever…”

But whether he trails off from uncertainty or the fear of being overheard, Roger doesn’t know.

“What?” he asks, then realises what he’s getting at from the way he can’t quite form the words, “Been with a guy?”

“Yeah.”

Brian seems particularly interested in the contents of the gutter, but Roger knows he’s listening to every word.

“Once. School.” he says.

“Ah.”

It’s probably the first time he’s ever told anyone that, and he’s hit by the sudden smell of mothballs and grey flannel, the sound of ‘Please, Please Me’ on a scratchy record player, two teenage boys fumbling in a tiny attic room in Truro. He flicks the thought away with his cigarette.

“Messy and weird. And painful. You?”

Brian glances at him, taking a deep breath in before he speaks.

“Yeah, same. School.”

He tries to imagine Brian as a teenager. He’s seen a picture, one of him with a newly made Red Special gleaming almost as brightly as his tightly gelled wave of hair. He’s almost unrecognisable save for those same long, deft fingers, those same kind eyes. Roger tries to slot him into his memory, imagine it’s him on that single bed, hand down his school shorts, biting back sounds lest they should be caught and incur God-knows-what consequences. He wonders how it was for Brian; whether he was as terrified of being caught, whether it hurt so much he couldn’t really speak to say no, same as him. He decides that’s a question for another day.

Instead, he nudges him with a shoulder.

“God, lot of sexual repression there.” He half-jokes, and Brian huffs out a laugh.

“It’s the knee-high socks, I say.”

The shop is frustratingly busy, it being prime grocery time, so for the whole duration inside they play a game of skirting around each other, hands brushing as they reach for the same item, standing just too close behind one another in the queue for the till. Roger even puts up with Brian’s disapproval when he stocks up on smokes, but that might be due to the fact that he knows Brian loves anything that lets him look at his mouth, so he only half means it. It’s his favourite part of any hookup, this dance, this game. Knowing that someone wants you, but dragging out the end result into a cat and mouse with each other, even better here where they can’t catch each other, even when they get to wanting to. In a bar the game is short, and easily won, played with drinks and dancing and hips pressed tightly, but this game is as long as they make it, stretching the whole walk home until they’re outside the flat door and Roger lays a hand flat on Brian’s chest, kissing him deep.

He wins.

* * *

Brian takes the longest shower of his life. It’s longer than Freddie’s showers, which are Herculean, but, in fairness, he has a hell of a lot to think about.

He thinks that maybe a hungover grocery run doesn’t count as a first date. He thinks they did kiss twice, and once outside their apartment after a walk home, which maybe does count as first date content. He thinks Roger isn’t thinking nearly so much about it, but if he hadn’t brought it up they might never have gotten around to talking about it so he thinks that maybe thinking too much is actually exactly what’s needed in this scenario. But he still doesn’t want to overthink it.

He thinks about Roger in his uni hoodie. He thinks wanking in the shower might be a new low.

By the time he’s finished, the smell of breakfast has permeated the flat, so he traipses in to grab a plate, keeping half an ear open to hear Roger barricade himself in the bathroom, the resulting imaginings utterly detaching him from whatever conversation Freddie’s trying to engage him in. It’s about close harmonies, or something, about whether they should take them up another third, but Brian’s thinking, always thinking, about Roger’s hand on his chest and his body in the shower.

He does end up figuring out the harmonies, though, when he’s back in his room, fiddling about with their progression on his acoustic before he notices a presence in his doorway. He looks up, and his heart stops for a split second.

Roger’s got his come-hither eyes turned on, and Brian’s genuinely worried by how quickly and strongly his body reacts to them. He’s only ever seen them be used on others, on beautiful girls from behind his drumkit, at the bar, at Freddie a few times in on and offstage teasing games, but never their full unadulterated power on him. Maybe some of them filtered through a fuzzy haze of alcohol last night, but now Brian feels like a rabbit in two baby-blue headlights as Roger looks at him hungrily.

“You’ll catch your death.” He says, stupidly, setting his guitar down, because Roger is only in a thin unbuttoned blouse and his hair straggles damp down his shoulders and Roger rolls his eyes at the idiocy of the statement.

“Keep me warm, then,” he responds, in a ridiculous, faux-husky voice and Brian has to laugh even as he flushes, but Roger really does come to sit next to him on the edge of the bed, sharing his body heat. And then, before Brian really knows what’s happening, they’re kissing for the third time today and there’s so much tempting bare skin that he really doesn’t know where to put his hands. He settles for the waistband of the same jeans from last night, and heat flashes to his crotch when he realises that Roger put them back on deliberately, because he knows what they do to him.

Sober Roger is a very different kisser to the pliant, blissed out Roger who let Brian relish in him last night. Sober Roger kisses how Brian expects, challenging, certain, but the driving lust he anticipates is more like a deeper passion. His lips move with a purpose, tongue seeking out the inside of Brian’s mouth and he’s slightly breathless trying to keep up, especially when Roger keeps letting out those tiny moans whenever Brian’s hands tighten on his hips. He’s got his wound in Brian’s hair, tight, and the length of their thighs are pressed together as their mouths move, hot and fast and open against each other. Roger’s hands tug at his scalp, then he nips at Brian’s lower lip, which isn’t wholly unwelcome, but makes him pull back for a second.

“Sorry,” Roger says, eyes dark, “It was just a hint.”

“A hint for what?”

“For _you_ to bite _me_.” He says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and whilst Brian’s dick definitely seems interested, he’s a bit thrown by the idea. Leaning back on his elbows, he pulls the hair out of his face and takes a bit of a breather.

“Oh. Okay.” he manages, and Roger moves to lie beside him on the bed, worried expression like something’s actually wrong, rather than Brian just being a bit thrown off by his enthusiasm.

“You okay?”

“Yeah just, can we slow down?”

God, he sounds like a fucking teenage girl who doesn’t want to rush into losing her virginity. He wants to shag Roger, but his head’s still aching a bit and he’s still tired and he what he wants to do more than anything is make out, slow and lazy and warm.

“Okay?” Roger doesn’t seem to fully understand, but he’s being very accommodating regardless.

“I thought you weren’t up for a shag today, anyway.”

Roger looks at him like he’s wondering what that has to do with anything.

“I’m not, really.” He says, and Brian raises his eyebrows. So this is just how Roger kisses normally, then.

“So enjoy it.”, he shoots back, and he leans in and kisses him, slow and deliberately lingering: a demonstration. “ _Slow down_.”

He can see Roger bristle at being told how to kiss, something Brian (or pretty much anyone) knows he prides as one of his special skills, so he tries to kiss the scowl off his mouth. Roger’s mouth is an unforgiving line though, so he moves down to his jaw, pressing chaste kisses there.

“Don’t sulk.” He murmurs into the skin, but Roger’s still pissed, so he moves back and looks him in the eyes, trying to explain as best he can, “You kiss like you’re trying to make me dissolve.”

The other man laughs derisively.

“Charming. I’m acid.”

Roger tries to push him away by the shoulder, but Brian catches his wrist, and Roger breaks and grins, half surprised, and then they’re tussling, grappling arms and legs and nearly falling off the bed until, miraculously, it’s Roger who ends up with Brian pinned underneath him.

He leans down and kisses him, achingly slow and drawn-out, and pulls back, smug.

“Like that?”

Dark blond hair falling about his face, just like last night, straddling one of Brian’s thighs and smelling of soap, face scrubbed clean, smirking, so ridiculously _him_ that Brian can’t help but grin.

And then he’s falling down, settling up against Brian’s body, one arm thrown over his chest and damp hair pressing on him a little uncomfortably.

“That was alright.” Brian jokes.

Roger pinches him, hard.

* * *

They lie there together for a good while, kissing forgotten in favour of staring up at the posters tacked to Brian’s ceiling. It’s a kid’s educational poster, the one directly above them, about the Solar System that Roger remembers nicking for him in some stupid impulsive action. He hadn’t realised he still had it, and the thought that it’s above him as he sleeps makes him weirdly warm inside.

It’s silent, and Roger thinks for the first time that it doesn’t make him feel uncomfortable. They’re talking instead through points of contact, his head on Brian’s shoulder, Brian’s fingers drumming patterns into the side of his ribcage.

His ego is still smarting slightly from earlier, but he’s glad Brian said something. He’s never really kissed just for the enjoyment of it, it’s always a means to a hot and sweaty end, and more than ever he thinks rushing with Brian is a way to forget he’s kissing his flatmate, his best friend, a guy, which the coward in him wants to. It’s the same coward that rushed in him at fourteen, but he’s not a fumbling teenager anymore, and there are no parents to catch them out, so he has room to breathe.

To slow down.

He listens to Brian’s breathing, slow and steady and even and forces himself to savour it. He listens to his own body, still in a debt of sleep from the night before.

He closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (off topic but i'm using this platform to tell the truth that the world needs to know: that interview where brian says someone has "the best drum sound" and everyone's making memes abt rog's reaction - they're talking about their PRODUCER being able to get the best sound out of roger playing his drums NOT another drummer smh
> 
> the memes are funny tho)
> 
> thanks for reading xoxox

**Author's Note:**

> there will be a ch2 about the day after .......... stay tooned


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